The Human Body User Manual Book 2 - The Path of Healing

This book is a sequence to the top selling book - The Human Body User Manual ( http://www.54md.com/book/catalog_5.html ). In Book 2, the author will explain more in depth some principles of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Interestingly he compared the relationship between the main human organs (according to TCM principles) with principles of management in the business world. He gave examples of how a company became successful by following certain principles (Relationship between the main human organs according to TCM) and how a company failed when it went against these principles.
That is a also a very interesting section dealing with emotions and health. According to TCM, different emotions affect different main internal organs and the functions of these main internal organs will also in turn affect our emotions.
Here is a short section I attempt to translate and share with all :
Heat stroke / cold drinks
As a result of heavy workload after a vigorous workout or exercise, the human heart need to continuously dissipate the resulting heat. This causes the body to sweat profusely to dissipate the heat. After the over-heated heart gradually return to normal temperature, the sweating will then gradually stop. During this process, the body has a self-regulated control system which is able to sense the temperature in various parts of the body and determine if the heat has already dissipated from the body. If now one gulps down a few mouthful of cold drink or goes straight into an air-conditioned environment or uses cold water to wash any part of the skin, the mouth / throat / skin area will experience a sudden strong cooling sensation. This sensation will swiftly reaches the brain, causing it to wrongly ascertain that the body has cooled dwon and signals the body to stop all acts of dissipating the body heat (sweating). Many people have this similar experience. When one sweats profusely and gulps down some cold drinks, sweating stops rapidly. The above mentioned explains this experience.
The cooling sensation only comes from the mouth / skin but if fools the brain into believing that the whole body has cooled down and stopped all heat dissipating processes. At this moment, the heart is still under high temperature, the muscles on the surface of the heart may subsequently get over-heated and injured as a result, leading to myocarditis (inflamation of the myocardium, the muscular part of the heart). In serious cases, the affected person may immediately faint while in less serious cases, the affected may show symptons of heat stroke.
Traditionally, the Chinese perceive cold drinks as harmful to health, especially if one takes cold drinks immediately after a vigorous exercise and the body is still very warm. The surface of the heart may be injured as a result of taking cold drinks. An injured heart will seriously impair its functions, causing problems in blood circulation and metabolism, leading to obesity.
This book is not available for downloading but some of its content are featured on the author's blog at :

http://alexwu2300.blogspot.com/

You will find many interesting items on Health at his blog.

Reference / Book links :
http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/china/chinafile.php?item=CN10110374
http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010400035

Human Body User Manual (Traditional Chinese Medicine)

This is a Chinese book that discusses some basic principles of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) in a revolutionary and scientific way that is easily understood by the layman. Most of time the author uses the analogy of a computer system to explain TCM concerpts. Here are just a few points which I gathered from this book.

* The Human body is an extremely intelligent system, many times more powerful than the computer system, especially in the management of resources and it's ability to transform one type of resouces to another type to meet the daily needs of our body system. For example, the book explains why people with diabetes lose a lot of weight during the initial period. It is a tranformation of one kind of resource inside the body to another in order to meet the deficiency of resouces in other areas. More detailed info are contained in the book.

* Sometimes, in coping with the heavy energy / resource needs of the body (eg stressful lifestyles), the body does not have the enough resources to clean up the waste and other toxic substances residing in the body. When one goes on a long vacation with plenty of rest, the body now have the resources to start a major 'spring cleaning' and a lot of waste and other toxic substances start discharging out of the body through the blood streams. If one goes for health screening (eg. blood test) during this period, the blood results may show 'unhealthy' signs. As such, it is important to take into account which period of time when one goes for a health check. Hence normal blood test results do not necessary mean that a person is healthy and vice versa. More detailed info are contained in the book.

* The illnesses in the internal main organs often manifest as symptoms in other external organs. Every often, people took Western medicines to relieve and suppress the symptoms instead of finding the exact causes. In the long run, this may harm the body. In TCM, it is essential to identify the exact cause of the an illness and the treatment of this illness may not be at the location where the symptoms occur after the cause of illness is identified. More interesting examples and info are found in the book.

* The book also discusses the different approach between Western Medicine and TCM.

* The book also provides simple tips / exercises in maintaining a healthy body.

You can download the book at :

http://www.54md.com/book/catalog_5.html

Not to worry, there are no copyright issues with downloading the book. As mentioned in the last few pages of the book under the Interview section, the author made the softcopy of the book freely available on the web for quite some time before the hardcopy prints were out. His intention was pure as he wished to benefit more people. He was indeed surprised that the circulation of his softcopy book created a surge in the sales of the hardcopy prints!

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Here is something I heard about (not from the book) and which I like to share. In Western culture, terms like 消毒，消灭，杀菌 etc are often used. In ancient Chinese culture, terms like 解毒，化解 are often used. From this you can see two different approaches towards the treatment of diseases and in a broader sense, attitudes towards Life. Very often, as we seen throughout history, the more human attempt to kill viruses, pests etc, the more resistant the viruses, pests etc behave towards the antibiotics. The viruses may also mutate in such a way that antibiotics become ineffective in such situations. If you watch Chinese films, you will come across the word 解毒药，but certainly not the word 消毒药or 杀毒药. Being able to neutralize the poison / viruses is the approach in ancient Chinese culture.

In the resolution of human conflicts around the world, the use of vengeful means usually lead to more disastrous results in the future. Hope that all conflicts can be resolved using peaceful means.

Emotion Free Techniques

Recently I came across this 'Emotion Free Techniques' which can be used to resolve emotional problems as well as physical ailments. Examples of applications include pain relief, anger, addictions, insomnia, allergies, anxiety, depression and the list goes on endlessly. The techniques are very simple and basically they involve using one's fingers to tap on certain major meridiens on the body.

Website : http://www.emofree.com/

To download the free manual : http://www.emofree.com/downloadeftmanual.asp

Beetroot

Beetroot is one of my favourite vegetable. You can just remove its skin, cut it into slices and boil it with water to make a simple soup. I really like the mild, natural sweetness of the warm beetroot soup. It gives me a warm, peaceful and energetic feeling. Furthermore, you can also do a simple stir fry of the beetroot itself or with other vegetables you like to experiment with. The mild sweet taste of the food will still be there. Give it a try. I think the Chinese name of beetroot is 甜菜根.

A recent study suggests that Beetroot juice can lower blood pressure. You can read about it HERE.